The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1887-08-31
Indiana Sratistic.

covers the years 1885 and 1886. as to general
statistics, but takes mp the subject of natural
gas in the limits of 1887 and in a very readable
and interesting treatise gives a summary of the
situation in Indiana on that subject up to date.
The report is divided into subjects we'll defined
and distinct such agricultural, economic,
manufacturing, railroad, social educational vital.
criminal, mineral and miscellaneous statistics.
A large part Of the volume consists of general
statistics compiled by counties. showing in
brief but compr extensive way, the location,
area, population. water-courses and power, sur
face, SOIL produc Is; value of all kinds of land,
improved and unimproved; drainage. railroads,
taxable values, schools, school property, funds
and taxes summary of the principal field
crops of grain. bay, potatoes. fax and clover
seed live stock Of all kinds. fatted and slaught-
cred, and horses. mules and sheep; the wool
clip, dairy products, poultry, eggs and feathers;
horticulture, covering fruit trees and grapes,
fruit, green. dried and canned; cider, wine, vine-
gar, molasses, sugar. stands OF bees and honey;
acres of timber and plowland. and blue and wild
grass land. To addition, there is set out table
showing the limits of township Indebtedness,
and one showing church membership. number of
churches, and buildings, and value and Sunday
school attendance.
Here is presen ted for each county miniature
of the condition and progress and resources for
two years. This is "a and very interesting
feature, involving great labor and giving great
satisfaction to the reader in this short
pendulum of the several counties The people of
every county can here about what their To-
cality amounts to, infinitely better than the
old system composed Of dreary and disconnected
columns of figures. The thanks of the people
due to the chief of the bureau for giving these
81, ,f,,1 olAa %I4 IT.
one desiring to immigrate here, such a summary
will be invaluable. Take any county in the
State, and there it u.s. nature and the settlers
have made it. There the values of the
taxables. the rate of taxation and the taxes;
there is the acreage and the products, the tim
Der and the plow- lands and their value In this
report the citizens of the several counties can
see their shortcomings well their advan-
tages, and can make this the basis Of their i'm
provement.
For instance, how does it come that in Har-
rison county there 259, $50 apple trees, while
in Hendricks, Putnam, Parke and Virgo, there
are but 252, 5942 1t means that in Harrison the
farmers have looked to their trees. while in the
four great counties Of western-central Indiana
named, they have not. The conditions for
apple raising are about as good in them in
Harrison Why should Owen county produce
%, 598 sheep, while Rush and Shelby combined
produce but IA, 76s, only half as mapy7 Why
should johnson county 291. 58l quarts OF
fruit and vegetables. and Tippecanoe only 42029
Is it not possible to raise many sheep in Sui
Ivan in Owen; yet the latter than
doubles the number while johnson has but one
fourth. Sullivan is said by our biologists to be
the very paradise of fruit-erowers. and yet ir
does not produce fourth of the apples that
Harrison does; and Wayne county is in the
rear OF Sullivan. How is it that Jefferson pro-
duees 10,5O0 and Vigo 10.2s1 grape vines, and
Monroe only 1900. Hendricks 100. Bartholo-
new 2o09, and Randolph /, 746a Every farmer
might have grapes to sell. Every county might
rival johnson in canning corn, and peas and to-
matoes.
Can any man explain why the average yield
of wheat in Lake county in 1886 was twenty-one
bushels to the acre. in Benton nineteen bushels
and in Wells seven and onetenth. liz Newton
eight and two tenths, and in Jay nine and
one-tenth? Was it cultivation It certainly is
not difference in the soils Why is it that
Hancock yielded forty-two bushels of corn to
the acre, johnson forty bushels and
Boone only thirty bushelsa These ties are
similar in soil and stuation-fat, rich. wet up
lands Was it in the weather, the seed or the
cultivation Upton yielded forty bushels and
Clinton thirty bushels the same season.
Why did Benton yield forty-two bushels of oats
to the and White, adjoining. only thirty
three bushels? How is it that Hamilton yields
forty-two bushels to the and her next
neighbor, Madison, only thirty-one bushels2
Both counties are intersected by White river
and similar streams. Such inquiries awak-
ened, by tho hundred in looking at these sta
tistics.
To illustrate the happy distribution Of the
best qualities of soil, that eleven conn
ties situated In every quarter of the State, yield
the largest product of wheat In the extreme
southwest. Gibson and Posey lead the State.
Then follows in the northeast, Allen-then
comes Clinton, Carroll and Cass in the north
central; then. in the central. Hamilton, Madison
Montgomery and Shelby; then in the west Tip
pecanoe
So in corn, Benton in the west, Shelby
in the center, Clinton in the north, Randolph in
the east, lead tho State, followed closely by Rush,
Delaware aud Wayne in the east, Tippecanoe,
Montgomery and Parke in the west. while Posey,
Gibson and Knox are close behind them. In
bluegrass and other wild grass pasturage, Put
nam leads the State with 123. 900 acres. followed
by Owen with e, 600 acres, and Lake with g.
900 acres.
The great staples, corn, wheat, hay and oats,
yielded in 1885, in the aggregate. in value
follows: Wheat. $32, 419. 73s: corn $36 791. 551;
hay timothy and clover $751; 453 513; oats. S. 2l5.
$780, potatoes, ST. 1911 $40. and tobacco ST. 421, 1913.
The total of field products was s113 $685. 1857; gar
den products. 1926, 844 orchard products,
S. 227. 900; dairy products, ST.. 8O1, 235; hogs,
1865, 290; poultry eggs and feathers, $4. 707.
100; horses, s., 955. 900; cattle. $l667, 543 and
other minor items, making in all for farm prod
ucts, $50, 5l5.317; coal, 81 s00,00 stone,
ouarried. 81, SEQ, 900: manufactured products,
$I58 562 GAG. Total production, $685. 2750 46
Very valuable data have been collected con-
corning the prices of land, improved and unim-
proved, in the different counties, showing how
cheap our farming lands are; the quality OF the
soil, the situation roads. bridges mills, schools
churches railroads. ETC., grouped in con-
nection showing the desirability of the localities